The Tales of Those Left Behind
by thecolouryes
Summary: When the Doctor touches your life, just for a moment, it’s forever changed. Even if he stays a nameless entity who prevents calamity, you can never return to the life you used to live.
1. Becky

**The Tales of Those Left Behind**

**A Doctor Who General/Angst Fanfic**

**Summary:  
**_**When the Doctor touches your life, just for a moment, it's forever changed. Even if he stays a nameless entity who prevents calamity, you can never return to the life you used to live.**_

**Rated K+ for references to maybe a couple things.**

**Disclaimer: All of these characters are mine. Most of these situations are mine. The Doctor, in ninth, tenth, and possibly fourth (we'll see about the scarf-man) regenerations belong to BBC. Nine and Ten are technically RTD's, but still.**

**A/N: This idea came to me awhile ago. I don't exactly know when, 'cause I'm typing this up on a computer that's not my own, but I had a flashdrive version of what I've worked on (and this document, since I won't upload until I get back). Anyway, no need to regale you with my life's story, but basically this idea has been floating around in my head for a bit and was re-sparked by a fic I beta'd yesterday.**

**Chapter One: Becky (1217 words)**

Rebecca Elaine Pierson never returned to her mundane everyday life. Her parents blamed it on her loss of a job. Her mates blamed it on a man. Her ex-boyfriend blamed it on their breakup. Her sister blamed it on her move. Her brother blamed it on her lack of contact with any of them. Her every acquaintance from before blamed it on her new job.

The problem with these guesses was that they were all a _result_ of what happened.

Becky, as her friends knew her, had been living a pretty normal life before that strange man entered it. Touched it, would be more correct. She never even knew his _name_, despite everything he'd done for her. Or did he even know how much he'd done for her? Sometimes, Becky wondered. She had been a part of the background, a part of the scene, but in that one moment, he'd looked right at her and she'd figured she'd mattered.

But then he'd turned around and fended off the Thing, as Becky came to refer to it. She really had no idea what it was. Massive, flaming, but with a form and apparently intelligent enough to communicate with that stranger, the one who'd saved her life.

Becky had never been much of a religious sort, but even had she been, she would have found no better explanation for this man than as a god. He was quite godly in his selfless actions, and properly godly in his anonymity, and certainly a savior of at least her fleetingly unimpressive life.

At first, everyone had thought she was crazy, even Becky herself for a time. But the smallest, strangest things kept springing back into her mind. Stuff she couldn't have _possibly_ made up would resurface from her everyday life. One day, she was washing the dishes with a new lavender-scented soap and she was reminded of how the Thing, despite its flames, smelled of fresh lavender. She had stood there in shock, staring at the plate she was supposed to be washing, until her boyfriend had come home from work and worriedly asked if that was where she had been all afternoon.

She explained her slight pause – to her boyfriend – as a side-effect of the Incident, which she called that time. The Incident, in which she and a hundred of her former co-workers had been shoed from their building by a strange, big-eared northerner. Becky, who had always wished for some sort of adventure to upset her otherwise dull life, had stopped for a moment as she tried to find out what was going on, to no avail. That man, the god, had only unleashed a broad smile in response to her question of "What's going on?"

"Run," he'd ordered. "Go on, run!" Four words, and they'd made all the difference.

Her instinct had told her to follow those orders, so she did. She ran, and she blended back in with the crowd. She was the only one among them who'd gotten a glimpse of the fire creature – and the Thing's smell of lavender. So there was no one she could turn to, because she was the only one who'd gotten a little bit more.

There were many times when she regretted that decision. What would have happened if she'd refused to run? What if she'd demanded that he tell her what was going on? Would he have? Would she have learned his name, if she'd asked? It seemed lonely work, saving people. The lonely god. He _was_ alone, wasn't he? She wouldn't know – she hadn't asked. Not that he would have answered her, had she done so. Maybe that was just what it was, though, to be a good. There must be few gods left, for such loneliness to radiate off him like that. The loneliness was thick, palpable. She had a desire to reach out and touch him, to make him less lonely, in that moment that he spoke to her.

Which was completely silly, as he was the one who had touched her life and simply disappeared. Absolutely no trace of the mysterious northerner who'd told them all to get out of the building just in time for them to turn round and see it burn could be found in the remains. Very little evidence of _anything_ could be found in the remains. The fire had ravaged through the building as a quick, hot blaze, completely destroying everything. Needless to say, Becky was out of work.

She was the only one treated for any injuries relating to the fire, in the end. She had a strange burn she hadn't felt until a paramedic had pointed it out to her. It wasn't serious, just a brush, but it left a scar. Something must have touched her, only for a second, the doctors said later. She was quite lucky that this was nothing serious, that nothing was really wrong with her, that she had gotten out. She must have been right in the thick of things, but saved at the last moment. Someone must have saved her.

The police had, of course, asked her if she'd seen anything mysterious. She described the northerner, but no matter what words she put to him she hadn't felt she'd done him a justice. Eventually, she stopped trying. The incident was eventually officially blamed on some faulty wiring in the file room (which was nowhere near Becky's office, so they'd had a hard time explaining why she'd gotten the burn, especially since she hadn't said that she'd been anywhere near the room).

Now, Becky's scar was the only thing about herself that she really liked. The symbolism in the scar that ran across her palm from thumb to pinkie didn't escape her. She used it as a source of inspiration, of determination. She'd turn her left hand palm-up whenever she was feeling low and remember that chance meeting and move forward.

The problem was that even when she closed her hand, even when she turned it over, she knew the scar was still there. It was never going to go away, so she had to try her hardest not to look at it.

So she moved across the country, found a new job in a small company that was nothing like her old job, broke up with her boyfriend, eased out of contact with her acquaintances. She trained herself not to look at her palms. She closed her hand around the scar, but it was still there, and sometimes she caught a glimpse of it.

But the glimpses were reassuring, like re-reading a well-loved book, comfortable in the knowledge that nothing had changed. And they were just another thing that proved that she would never, ever, return to her old life.

**A/N: Well, how do you like it? I've got another one, too, though that one's a lot different. Did you expect to see Nine in a fic of mine? I sure didn't. :D **


	2. Maria

**The Tales of Those Left Behind**

**Disclaimer: All of these characters are mine. Most of these situations are mine. The Doctor, in ninth, tenth, and possibly fourth (we'll see about the scarf-man) regenerations belong to BBC. Nine and Ten are technically RTD's, but still.**

**A/N: Well, a second one, hope you like that. Well, obviously you do or you wouldn't be here. This one is written in a totally different style, as I'm trying to get into the head of a nine-year-old.**

**Chapter Two: Maria (1089 words)**

Maria Claire Jones never said "thank you." And it bothered her. A lot. Her parents brought her up to have good manners, so of course it bothered her! Maria was only nine, but she knew that some things were very important, and saying "thank you" to someone who saved your life was up at the top of the list, if not _the_ very top of the list.

When she had just turned nine, she was at her summer home with her parents, as usual, and she was swimming in the lake. It was a nice day, not too hot, not too cold, and the lake was rather warm after having sat in the sun for so many days. There was nothing Maria like more than swimming in the lake, except maybe the chocolate cake that her grandmother made every year for her birthday. But that she only got once a year, and the lake she could swim in all summer long.

Maria was swimming in the lake all alone that afternoon, because her friend Jane had gone home early so she could go to a party. Maria was envious of her friend, because the party was for one of Jane's cousins, and Maria thought Jane was going to have a lot of fun there. Maria didn't have any cousins, so she didn't know how annoying they could really be, even though Jane had tried to tell her all about how annoying they were.

After Maria was swimming in the lake for a while, she started collecting shells, which was another thing she liked to do a lot. She didn't like to do it as much as swimming, but swimming wasn't that much fun all alone. Also, Jane had shown Maria the shell that she had gotten while she was vacationing in the Caribbean. Maria wanted to prove that she could find just as pretty rocks or shells in her lake. So she was also sort of on a mission.

Maria was wandering along the edge of the lake when she found a very interesting shell. Or maybe it was a rock. It was big, about the size of the seat of the stools back home at the kitchen eating counter. It was round like them, too, but it wasn't made of cloth. It was made of something shiny and pink, which was what had made Maria think it was a shell at first. Also, when she picked it up, it was very light and it was sort of hollowed out on the bottom side, like a bowl, only it had lines in it more like the inside of a shell. Maria tried putting it on her head and found that it made a rather fine hat. She picked up the bucket with her other shells in it and walked back to where her towel was with the shell still on her head. The really nice shell-hat that she had found was a little dirty, so she went into the water and took the shell with her to wash off.

However, something strange happened when she put the shell in the water. The shell started to dissolve! She was quite upset; she was sure that the big shell-hat would at least be as good as Jane's Caribbean shell, if not better. Maria turned around and headed back towards the beach to get her things and head home.

Unfortunately, she couldn't move! The nice sandy beach had suddenly become very sticky, and the water didn't feel right. It was really hard to move her hands, which were under the water, around, and her feet were stuck on the bottom. Then, suddenly, she was moving – away from the beach! Maria didn't think she had ever been more scared in her life. She was certain that she was going to drown! Something was going to rise up from the depths of her lake and eat her! As if to emphasize her fear, the center of the lake started rippling and bubbling, like something was coming up to the surface. Maria started to scream.

A man in a suit and bright red trainers came running to her rescue. Well, he came running into the water, and Maria thought he was coming to her rescue. He ran right up to her and pointed something that looked a bit like a torch at her. It made a high pitched buzzing that hurt her ears a bit, but then she could move again! The man made sure that she was all right, then turned back to the middle of the lake. Maria watched, surprised, as it looked like the man scolded the swirling water for scaring her.

Then, he helped Maria out of the water and made her swear that she was alright. He promised that the lake wouldn't be dangerous anymore. Then he told her to run off to her parents; he had to leave, too. Maria ran out of the water. She turned around to show the man her rock collection – he had seemed someone who would like it – but he had disappeared. A bit saddened, Maria picked up her bucket, wrapped her towel around herself, and headed home.

All that had happened, and she _still_ hadn't said goodbye. At first, when she first realized that she hadn't said "thank you," she had been worried that her parents would be mad that she hadn't, so she hadn't told anyone. Then, she decided that it was more important that she say "thank you," so she told her parents about everything that had happened and then ask them who the person was who had saved her life, and how she could contact him to tell him "thank you." But that hadn't gone her way. Her parents had made her go to a lot of doctors who took lots of tests on her, and made her take lots of tests, and talked to her about what had happened again. She really didn't like them or any of the tests, even the ones that were supposed to be fun. Eventually, they all decided that nothing was really wrong with her, and they sent her off back to her summer home where the first thing she did was go swimming in the lake.

It still bothered her that she never said "thank you," but she stopped telling people this. She just hoped that some time in the future, she would meet that man again so she could tell him.

And she hoped beyond all hope that he wasn't a doctor.

**A/N: Ahh, Ten, right where he belongs. Saving the day without a "thank you." And of course I couldn't resist that last line.**

**I have one more really **_**new**_** first sentence (not with a character yet, just the second bit of the sentence). I really don't want to do that one yet, as it involves no Doctor anywhere. Actually, I have that prompt for the fourth Doctor, but I have to go home and watch more than just about 5/6 of Robot before I try and toss him in here (even though I really don't need to, I have enough of him in the prompt).**

**So, anyway, my point. If you have a second bit of a sentence – after the full name, I mean – that you want me to use, tell me and I'll probably use it. And of course credit you! If you have a name that you want me to use with it, I can do that too, but I need at least the second bit of the sentence.**


End file.
